


Let love lead us

by Felixseo (kafkao)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, just pure fluff, not a drop of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 10:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17159927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kafkao/pseuds/Felixseo
Summary: Changbin glances out of the corner of his eye and he can see snowflakes settling on the tip of Hyunjin’s nose and against the fringe on his forehead. He thinks about how Christmas is for appreciating beauty, and if that is its only purpose- he’s fulfilled it quite well.orAll the Christmases Changbin and Hyunjin spend together





	Let love lead us

**Author's Note:**

> ooof merry christmas to everyone who celebrates it! I wrote this out of my ass in the span of like four hours because I watched too many christmas movies and felt soft
> 
> Thank you to dustee for beta-ing :D
> 
> Title taken from Love is Christmas by Sara Bareilles

Changbin is seven when he spends his first Christmas with Hyunjin. It’s not just Hyunjin, it’s also Felix and Jisung, and Jeongin is due to come around later in the afternoon, but Changbin pretends it’s only Hyunjin because Hyunjin is his _only_ friend who didn’t give him a box full of nothing but polystyrene balls as a gift. (In Felix and Jisung’s defence they’d accidentally spent all their pocket money on sweets at the corner shop, and they hadn’t given _anyone_ a present, but Changbin takes pride in his ability to feel personally offended over petty matters.)

It’s fun; spending Christmas with your friends, just as cosy as with family, but with that extra bit of loudness because he doesn’t have to worry about baby Jisoo sleeping in the room next door.

Hyunjin had gifted him a new PlayStation game, and Felix had immediately seized it with Jisung by his side, and they’d set it all up on Changbin’s console, leaving Hyunjin and Changbin to entertain themselves. Changbin suggested a movie, so Hyunjin had draped himself over his lap, whilst _Jack Frost_ played on the living room TV.

“Are you boys just going to spend the whole day in front of the TV?” Changbin’s mother had scolded when she walked in to see their pile of blankets and empty plate of biscuit crumbs on the coffee table. Hyunjin and Changbin had made simultaneous grunting sounds in response, and Mrs Seo had sighed, “Why don’t you play something?”

Changbin had glanced at his mother; exasperated and tired from a long day of cleaning up after their extended family, and rowing with her daughter Hyejin about a Christmas party she wanted to attend (she didn’t win the argument and was now sulking in her room), and felt pity swell in his heart.

Changbin poked at Hyunjin with his toes, effectively making the other giggle and squirm, before he lifted his head,

“Jenga?” Changbin proposes, and Hyunjin easily agrees.

They play the game for the next hour and a half, and when Jisung and Felix join them a little while later, the simple game of Jenga carries on throughout the night and into the next day. It’s ridiculous, it really is, but when Changbin lies on his living room floor, tired from laughing at Jisung wrestling Hyunjin for cheating, he thinks about how Christmas is for spending time with people you love, and if that is its only purpose- he’s fulfilled it quite well.

 

Changbin is ten when he experiences his first white Christmas. Well, the first white Christmas he can remember. His parents tell him there was a white Christmas when he was three, and another when he was six, but this one, at ten years old, he’ll never forget. He spends it with Hyunjin (because when _doesn’t_ he spend the holiday season with Hyunjin?) and it’s unexpected, because sure it’s been freezing cold for the last two weeks, and Changbin can’t remember the last time he left the house without three jackets and two pairs of socks, but nobody really guesses that it’ll _snow._

The cold December temperature in Seoul is simply a given, everybody just expects it, but they’re halfway through Christmas dinner and ten year old Changbin is pushing the peas around his plate (after being told off for not so discreetly flicking them at Hyejin) when Hyunjin grips his wrist and incidentally startles him a little.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin breathes before Changbin can speak. His words are directed at Changbin but his eyes are trained on the window behind him, so Changbin turns a little, though Hyunjin is already speaking, _“It’s snowing.”_

Changbin and Hyunjin are excused from the table before they even get a chance to ask, and they pull on their thick coats and boots, wrapping one another in knitted scarves before they jump outside in the freshly layering snow.

It falls soft but fast, thick flakes clouding their vision as the two boys jump around in unmatchable states of excitement, simply in awe at the presence of the thick blanket gradually forming around them.

Eventually, Hyunjin instigates a snowball fight, and even though Changbin’s fingers are frozen (because _gloves,_ he forgot his _gloves)_ he’s never been one to back down from a fight. Hyunjin is still a lot shorter than Changbin, and Changbin uses this to his advantage, because Hyunjin may have a better aim but Changbin can easily shove handfuls of snow down Hyunjin’s Christmas jumper and create a sopping wet mess.

They’re giggling on their backs, attempting snow angels when Seungmin from next door pokes his head over the fence, a frown settling when he sees where all the noise is coming from.

“You’ll catch a cold lying in the snow like that,” Seungmin scolds, but he clambers over the fence to lie next to them anyway.

The snow starts falling faster once more, and when Changbin glances out of the corner of his eye he can see snowflakes settling on the tip of Hyunjin’s nose and against the fringe on his forehead, he thinks about how Christmas is for appreciating beauty, and if that is its only purpose- he’s fulfilled it quite well.

 

Changbin is twelve when he goes through a baking obsession and spends Christmas morning making batches and batches of different types of cookies. Hyunjin is by his side as always, adding tiny decorations to every cookie that Changbin hands him, even the burnt ones _(“we can just ice them, hyung.”)_

It’s a mess, really, and it’s also ridiculously early, so when the clock continues to tick forward, counting down the hours until the guests arrive, Changbin grows increasingly worried, because he’d _promised_ to contribute cookies this Christmas, but they were all either too big or too small or too burnt or not cooked _at all._

Hyunjin looks at Changbin, the stress eating away at the twelve-year-old’s features, the smudge of flour on his cheek and the edible glitter in his hair.

“Hyung,” He says softly, and when Changbin looks at him with weary eyes, he takes his hands in his own, rubbing them softly. Despite the heat of the kitchen, they’re cold and slightly clammy, radiating worry and nerves. “It’s okay,” Hyunjin assures, “We can go out and get some.”

Changbin pouts, “What would be open on Christmas _day?”_

Hyunjin smiles brightly,

“I know a place.”

Woojin looks all prepared to whack them both over the head when they appear at his front door in matching aprons at nine in the morning on Christmas day.

“What the hell?” He hisses as Hyunjin leads Changbin into the kitchen without a word.

“Where do you keep your- _ahah!”_

Hyunjin opens one of the many cupboards in Woojin’s family kitchen pulling out two bags of star shaped biscuits.

“Can we have these?”

“I guess?” Woojin answers, still slightly dazed, perfectly confused. Hyunjin grins wide before pulling Changbin out of the house and back to his own.

Later, when they’re prettily laying the cookies out on decorated plates and the compliments are being delivered a mile a minute, Changbin sees the secret wink Hyunjin sends him and he thinks about how Christmas is for making people happy, and if that’s its only purpose- he’s fulfilled it quite well.

 

Changbin is fifteen when he’s invited to his first Christmas party. Well, invited and actually _allowed_ to go. His sister is ecstatic; she enters his room straight after lunch, babbling about her baby brother being all grown up and insists on doing his hair, pulling him away from the video game he was previously occupied by with Hyunjin.

Hyejin is remorseless; she sprays a ridiculous amount of volume spray in his hair and grips it in a dozen different places, ignoring her younger brother’s whines that it _hurts_. When she turns on the hairdryer, Changbin _screeches_ at the feeling of the highest heat setting, so Hyejin gets Hyunjin to hold him by the shoulders, and when that doesn’t work, she sits Hyunjin in his lap so he can’t squirm. Changbin sniffles about Hyunjin betraying him and siding with the enemy _,_ but both his older sister and best friend ignore him.

After an hour of poker paste and hairspray, Hyejin decides Changbin is ready for his first Christmas party, and releases him from her imprisonment.

“Thank god,” Changbin exhales dramatically when Hyunjin leaves his lap, and Hyejin snickers as she unplugs her straightening iron and wraps the wire around it.

“You’ll thank me, little brother,” She says, all matter-of-factly, “When Park Yejin falls at your feet because of your pretty boy hairstyle,”

Changbin snorts,

“Yejin is _seventeen._ She wouldn’t look at me even if I went dressed as a clown.”

“Is that why she’s never spared you a glance at school?”

_“Hwang Hyunjin,”_

Changbin ignores his sister’s yell of _be careful with your hair_ in favour of tackling Hyunjin to the floor.

Hyunjin is giggling under Changbin’s grip, his own hair unstyled and therefore falling across his face, but he’s still as beautiful as ever, pretty lips pulled into a smile as his body shakes with laughter.

“I don’t want Yejin to look at me,” Changbin mutters to himself.

 

(To Changbin’s surprise, not only does Yejin look at him, she also asks to _dance_ with him to which Changbin politely declines, adamant on not leaving Hyunjin alone. Hyunjin scolds him, tells him to go and have fun, but later when they’re both alone in someone’s bedroom, dancing to the faint sound of Feliz Navidad from downstairs, Changbin’s head on Hyunjin’s shoulder, he thinks about how Christmas is for spending it in good company, and if that’s its only purpose- he’s fulfilled it quite well.)

 

Changbin is nineteen and Hyunjin is eighteen when they throw a Christmas party of their own. The snow is too thick for any of them to travel home from college, but they have their friends to invite. Chan and his boyfriend Minho from across the hall are also snowed in so they easily agree, and Jisung, Felix and Woojin don’t have to be told twice. Jeongin had come up to visit Seungmin, and also gets pulled into the impromptu party of chaos.

Hyunjin and Changbin spend the entire morning pushing the couches out of the way in their cosy little apartment. Their living room is large enough to keep their average sized Christmas tree, but they unplug the TV and close the door on it in Changbin’s room.

Changbin goes out to buy alcohol and comes home to the smell of baking.

“I thought I was the baker,” He whines when he enters the kitchen and Hyunjin laughs, wobbling slightly as he ices a biscuit,

“Please hyung, do you remember what happened when you were twelve?”

Changbin’s cheeks grow warm, the colour matching the redness of his frozen fingers from being outside. Hyunjin notices this and drops the piping bag to take Changbin’s hands between his own, rubbing them together for warmth,

“Nine years,” He murmurs, “Nine years and you still can’t remember to wear gloves.”

Changbin smiles a little,

“Why would I need them when I have you?” He hesitates before shuffling forward and pressing his face into Hyunjin’s neck. Hyunjin shivers when the tip of Changbin’s cold nose touches his skin, but he doesn’t move away, only allows the elder to move closer.

“Let me finish these,” He says after a comfortable silence, and Changbin reluctantly lets go, neither of them mentioning how the blush now rests in both of their cheeks.

Chan and Minho are the first to arrive, soon followed by Seungmin and Jeongin who help Changbin finish with the last few decorations in the living room.

Minho and Chan bring a ridiculous amount of mistletoe with them, and Hyunjin rolls his eyes when Minho wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Thought you two might need some help,” is the only explanation Minho offers before hanging it in all the doorways and under every surface. Hyunjin glares, but he doesn’t remove any of them.

What was supposed to be a loud, energetic party turns into quite the opposite. They drink and dance and play truth or dare for a few hours before Chan complains that old age has reached him too early and plugs in the TV still in Changbin’s room, before slipping in _Love Actually._ Jeongin joins him soon after, followed by Jisung and Hyunjin, and then one by one they all end up sprawled out over Changbin’s bed and bedroom floor.

There’s silence as they watch, but Jisung is slowly falling asleep against Felix’s shoulder, and Chan passed out a _very_ long time ago.

Changbin has to gently tiptoe over five bodies before he can reach the door when he needs to use the bathroom. As he’s washing his hands, there’s a knock on the door, a knock he just _knows_ so he unlocks the door, not the slightest bit surprised to see Hyunjin standing there.

Back when they were watching the movie, Hyunjin had started to look slightly sleepy, and Changbin was sure it wouldn’t take long for the younger to join the team of friends who were nudged every ten minutes for snoring too loud, but here outside the yellow of the bathroom lights, Hyunjin is looking wide awake and also insanely determined.

“Jinnie?” Changbin says softly, easily taking the hand that Hyunjin offers him. Hyunjin is quite a bit taller than him now, and it’s obvious at times like this, when they stand chest to chest, knees pressed together, “What is it?”

Hyunjin opens his mouth to say something, then closes it, and suddenly he’s close, _very_ close, his pretty eyes and pretty lips the only thing Changbin can see, and Changbin realises he’s asking for _permission,_ because Changbin _knows_ Hyunjin, he knows the way his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth when tugging at Jenga pieces, knows the way his eyes glitter when he sees snow, and the way he furrows his brow in concentration whilst icing cookies, but this look of _hesitancy_ and _diffidence_ throws Changbin off because Hyunjin is always _sure_ and _confident._

So Changbin takes Hyunjin’s face in his hands and pushes himself onto his tiptoes, then very gently, and as soft as possible, presses his lips to Hyunjin’s, smiling when the younger eagerly pushes closer.

The kiss can only be described as soft, delicate yet _certain,_ because it should feel new yet it’s so _familiar,_ just Changbin and Hyunjin, best friends like they’ve always been, and now maybe something a little more.

Changbin’s lips are still parted when they separate, and Hyunjin smiles bashfully, eyes downcast,

“There was mistletoe,” He murmurs, and Changbin laughs in surprise when he looks up to find the decoration dangling above their heads in the doorway,

“Is that the only reason you kissed me?”

“Of course.”

“And not because you have a raging crush on me?”

“Of course _not.”_

Hyunjin’s cheeks are bright red and he’s finding it ridiculously difficult to look up from the floor, which only makes Changbin laugh in delight.

“You’re cute,” He mutters, before pulling Hyunjin in once more, and this time there’s not an ounce of hesitance laced into it.

(Later, when the pair are tangled with their friends under a million blankets, Changbin feels Hyunjin press his lips to the top of his head, and he thinks about how Christmas may be for love, beauty, happiness and good company, but it only comes around once a year, whilst Hyunjin is all of these things and _more_ and is always there no matter the season.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you ever wonder how extra I am about detail just know I researched which years Seoul had a white Christmas and then proceeded to work out how old Changbin would have been each time
> 
>  
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/feiixseo)


End file.
